Caffe Lusso Owner has High Octane Ideas

For most of us, it would be cliché to say we have coffee running through our veins, but for Philip Meech the adage seems to fit. His energy for coffee and community is infectious, which can only partially be attributed to caffeine.

“I’m very serious about coffee, and very relaxed about everything else,” says Meech, who grew up in Bellevue and now lives in Kirkland, and sells coffee around the area, but with an Eastside focus.

Meech, the owner of Caffe Lusso, says he first fell in love with coffee in 1991 as a high school student at Sammamish High School. He frequented the esoteric Last Exit on Brooklyn coffee house in Seattle with other theater students, where he could see the baristas as they worked behind the bar.

“That’s what captured me, the theater and the drama,” Meech says.

About having worked in coffee since that fateful time, and finishing his bachelor’s degree at WSU in Pullman, Meech launched Caffe Lusso 11 years ago in his father’s Bellevue garage (his father, Wayne Meech, still works with the company). Not long after, he found the company’s current location, at 17725 NE 65th St., in the Evans Business Park.

Ever since, Meech has been roasting coffee to his own beat, rejecting certifications such as Fair Trade Coffee because he prefers to go directly to the growers, giving them more control over their crops and prices. He says huge advances in technology have helped a lot of small farmers sell their coffee at better prices and actually know where the coffee they grow goes, noting that a farmer now may only have electricity in half of his house, but he’s on Twitter. Meech goes on trips to the farms he buys from, such as in Nicaragua, when he can, and works with organizations such as Agros International, which works to eradicate poverty in rural villages.

“I have an affinity for farmers because my family are farmers in Northern Colorado,” he says.

Now, Caffe Lusso roasts 50,000 to 60,000 pounds of coffee a year, in 25-pound batches. The business actually grew by 250 percent in the first six months of 2009, and this year volume is up by 120 percent, though coffee prices have also risen dramatically this year, Meech says. Customers such as , , and in Redmond, ViaVita Café in Bellevue, and —a contract that the company won by a blind taste-test—buy from Caffe Lusso.

Though Meech doesn’t have a sit-down coffee shop at his location, he also invites customers to come into the shop and buy their coffee fresh from the roaster (and while you’re there, he just might make you the finest cup of espresso you’ve had in years). In addition, the company has a professional espresso machine on site which he uses to offer trainings for corporate clients.

Meech has also gotten the shop involved in programs here, roasting coffee for fundraisers, and working with Street Bean Espresso, a coffee shop in Seattle that helps homeless teens get an address, a bank account, and skills that can help them find jobs in the coffee industry. Meech can be seen at volunteer events, too, recently donating his time and coffee to volunteers who were packing meals for Eastside Fill and Feed.

Soon, Meech will be hosting a “Latté Art Smackdown” at Caffe Lusso, which will give those teens a chance to show their skills by competing against seasoned baristas, and to connect with industry professionals. The event also will be a benefit for Street Bean, and Meech says he hopes the funds from it will help buy a new coffee grinder for the program.

Meech is also developing a curriculum that he plans to use to create a barista certification program, which he hopes will help standardize a skill set in the industry and provide a pool of well-trained potential employees that his wholesale customers can draw from when hiring, to minimize their training time in what is a traditionally high turnover field. Meech says he’d like to see the quality of coffee around the area continue to improve, and to support local businesses, such as Sterling coffee syrups produced in Renton and Black Scottie Chai from Woodinville, both of which Caffe Lusso distributes along with coffee and equipment.

“I really want to see a coffee renaissance on the Eastside,” he says.